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• Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | November 2018 (Revised March 2019)

  Initial Coin Offerings in 2018

  Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Nathaniel Schwalb

  In 2018, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) were an emerging fundraising method for blockchain-based projects. As the ecosystem grew, there were many open questions on regulation, pricing, and even which projects were a good fit for blockchain. However, there was already some emerging consensus on the benefits and challenges of building with blockchain and emerging best practices for Initial Coin Offerings.

  Keywords: Blockchain; Initial Coin Offerings; ICO; Decentralization; networks; Protocols; Entrepreneurship; Project Finance;

  Citation:

  Bussgang, Jeffrey J., Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White, and Nathaniel Schwalb. "Initial Coin Offerings in 2018." Harvard Business School Technical Note 819-057, November 2018. (Revised March 2019.)  View Details

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• Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | November 2017 (Revised November 2018)

  Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets

  Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Alexey Tuzikov

  Keywords: Blockchain; cryptocurrency; Initial Coin Offering; ICO; Finance; Entrepreneurship; Financial Services Industry;

  Citation:

  Nanda, Ramana, Robert F. White, and Alexey Tuzikov. "Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets." Harvard Business School Technical Note 818-066, November 2017. (Revised November 2018.)  View Details

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• Article | Harvard Business Review (website)

  The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings

  Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Ramana Nanda

  In recent years, much has been written about how the Blockchain is poised to transform traditional industries such as banking, real estate, and healthcare. More recently, it has gained attention as a way to finance new ventures, through what is known as an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Less noticed, though, is ICOs appear almost antithetical to the standard approach to financing a risky venture. Structured experimentation, popularized by Eric Ries' The Lean Startup, has been widely embraced as the gold standard for how to approach the commercialization of radical new ideas. From Boston to Beijing to Bangalore, entrepreneurs and investors rattle off the importance of designing focused experiments to test hypotheses in a capital-efficient fashion in order to achieve product-market fit. But ICOs substantially limit the benefits associated with such staged experimentation, for three reasons.

  Keywords: Initial Coin Offerings; Business Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Finance;

  Citation:

  Bussgang, Jeffrey J., and Ramana Nanda. "The Hidden Costs of Initial Coin Offerings." Harvard Business Review (website) (November 7, 2018).  View Details

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